THE  STATUS  OF  THE  INSURGENT  STATES, 

UPON  THE 

Cessation  of  Hostilities. 

THE  EIGHTS  OF  THE  DISLOYAL-THE  DUTIES  OF  THE  LOYAL  STATES. 

A  Speech,  delivered  "by 

GENERAL  BENJAMIN  F.  BUTLER, 

BEFORE  THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES , 

Wednesday,  April  11,  1866. 

The  members  of  the  Senate  and  House  met  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Repre¬ 
sentatives  at  eight  o’clock,  P.  M.,  pursuant  to  joint  resolution  inviting  Major  Gen¬ 
eral  Benjamin  F.  Butler  to  address  the  Legislature. 

Hon.  James  R.  Kelley,  in  introducing  General  Butler,  said : 

Gentlemen  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives ,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

The  name  and  fame  of  the  distinguished  gentleman  by  my  side  are  too  well 
known  to  this  Legislature,  and  the  people  of  this  State,  to  require  any  formal  notice 
or  introduction  at  my  hands.  It  is  only  necessary  for  me  to  present  him  to  you, 
and  ask  you  to  welcome  to  the  capital  of  Pennsylvania  Major  General  Benjamin  F. 
Butler. 

SPEECH  OF  GENERAL  BUTLER. 

After  the  applause  had  subsided,  General  Butler  spoke  as  follows: 

Mr.  Speaker ,  gentlemen  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Legislature 

of  Pennsylvania,' and  citizens  of  the  Keystone  State: 

I  return  my  most  cordial  thanks  for  the  high  honor  and  courtesy  shown  me  by 
this  reception.  I  must  attribute  it,  and  not  in  any  terms  of  self-abnegation,  to  the 
loyal  feeling  you  have  to  the  country,  and  as  a  recognition  of  an  endeavor  on  my 
part  to  aid  in  the  struggle  which  has  so  lately  almost  happily  terminated.  We  can 
congratulate  ourselves,  if  not  on  the  return  of  peace,  yet  on  the  cessation  of  all 
armed  hostility  to  the  Government  of  the  Union.  For  four  years  we  have  been 
called  upon  to  send  our  bravest  and  dearest  to  the  field  of  battle,  there  to  peril  life 
in  behalf  of  their  country’s  life  and  honor.  That  contest  has  terminated,  and  if 
the  anticipations  of  all  during  the  dark  and  bloody  struggle  had  been  realized,  that, 
when  war  would  cease  peace  indeed  would  come,  and  the  authority  of  the  Union, 
as  upheld  by  true  loyal  men,  should  be  established,  then,  indeed,  we  should  feel  that 
he  blood  of  our  sons  had  not  been  shed  in  vain.  [Applause.]  Therefore,  it  may 


be  assumed  that  it  is  in  the  hearts  of  every  one  present,  as  it  is  in  my  own,  to  ask 
each  other  in  words  like  as  of  old,  “Watchman,  what  of  the  night  ?”  for  each  hour 
brings  change,  a  new  feature,  a  new  thought  in  the  political  condition  of  the 
country. 

THE  FIRST  BLUNDER. 

It  is  not  with  anger,  hut  with  sorrow ;  not  with  doubt,  but  in  the  reasonable  exer¬ 
cise  of  judgment  that  I  feel  bound  to  say  what  I  believe  every  true  man  wdll  echo, 
however  painful  that  echo  may  be,  that  what  we  thought  we  had  gained  by  the 
struggle  has  not  yet  come  to  us;  and  to  ask,  if  not,  why  not?  On  the  surrender  of 
the  rebel  forces,  when  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  thousand  rebel  prisoners  of  war, 
in  arms,  were  surrendered  to  the  victorious  armies  of  the  United  States,  then  num¬ 
bering  a  million  men;  when  every  vestige  of  armed  resistance  was  blotted  out, 
when  their  great  leader,  their  representative  man  in  the  civil  government  of  the 
Confederacy,  was  captured  at  the  head  of  his  fugitive  guards,  and  when  the  nation 
shuddered  at  the  most  horrible  assassination  of  its  beloved  and  chosen  President; 
at  that  hour,  when  we  hoped  that  cruel  deed  might  be  avenged,  and  just  retribu¬ 
tion,  other  than  the  execution  of  the  poor,  half  innocent  instruments  of  that  crime, 
in  comparison  with  the  crime  of  the  great  leader,  might  be  had — at  that  hour  we 
saw  before  us  a  condition  of  things  when  as  each  man  of  you  will  agree  with  me, 
I  doubt  not,  we  had  but  to  impress  the  true  stamp  of  our  loyalty  upon  the  South 
and  it  would  have  received  and  retained  that  impress.  Does  any  one  doubt  if  at 
that  time  Congress  had  been  called  together,  and  if  the  co-ordinate  branches  of  the 
Government  had  then  agreed,  as  upon  other  extraordinary  occasions,  on  a  policy 
of  reconstruction  (if  reconstruction  was  needful),  or  a  policy  to  settle  the  troubles 
which  now  threaten  the  country  quite  as  much,  aye,  and  in  the  judgment  of  some 
good  men,  more  than  war — I  say,  can  any  one  doubt,  if  Congress  and  the  Presi¬ 
dent  had  at  that  time  agreed  (and  they  then  did  agree,  if  we  may  believe  the  public 
declarations  of  both)  that  that  policy,  Avhatever  it  might  have  been,  would  have 
been  carried  out  and  would  have  become  the  settled  law  of  the  land,  to  which  eveiy 
man  North  and  South  would  have  rendered  willing  obedience  ?  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  the  President  and  Congress  (they  being  called  together  as  upon  an 
extraordinary  occasion,  and  the  Constitution  gives  power  to  the  President  so  to  call 
them),  had  conferred  wflth  each  other,  and  it  had  been  enacted  by  the  law-making 
power,  and  rendered  certain  by  Executive  concurrence,  that  the  great  representa¬ 
tive  leader  of  rebellion,  Jefferson  Davis,  who  left  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  the  head  of  the  civil  government  of  the  rebellion,  should 
be  tried  for  his  crime,  and,  if  found  guilty,  convicted  and  punished,  as  an  example 
to  all  others  in  like  cases  offending  hereafter;  and  if  General  Lee,  who,  on  the  19th  of 
April,  18G1,  deserted  his  flag  for  the  purpose  of  taking  command  of  the  armed  forces 
of  the  enemies  of  the  United  States,  should  be  tried  and  punished,  as  every  soldier 
who  deserts  his  flag  to  command  the  armies  of  his  country’s  enemies  should  be  pun¬ 
ished,  by  every  law,  civil,  military,  human,  and,  I  might  almost  say,  divine ;  and 
if,  too,  it  had  been  then  proclaimed  that  every  man  who  had  left  the  army  of  the 
United  States,  and  every  man  who  had  left  the  halls  of  Congress  or  the  civil  service 
of  the  United  States  to  take  part  in  treason,  should  leave  the  country  for  his  coun¬ 
try’s  good  within  the  next  sixty  days,  and  leave  his  property  to  make  good,  in  some 
degree,  the  losses  he  had  occasioned;  and  that  every  other  man  who  had  served  in 
the  rebel  army  or  in  rebel  legislatures  who  desired  to  leave  the  country,  should  have 
free  passage  to  go  and  never  return;  and  if  it  should  have  been  further  declared 
that  all  men  who  had  taken  an  active  part  in  the  rebellion,  and  thereby  forfeited 
their  rights  as  citizens,  should  thereafter  remain  without  any  share  of  political  power 
in  the  United  States,  at  least  as  long  as  it  requires  a  well  disposed  foreigner  to  get 
political  rights;  if  each  one  of  these  measures  had  been  adopted,  does  any  one 
doubt  that  peace,  quietness,  loyalty  and  justice  to  all  men  would  now  have  reigned 
in  every  State  in  the  South?  It'  I  am  right,  then  may  we  not  complain  because  we 
see  that  the  best  thing  to  be  done  was  not  done;  but  as  I  have  only  sketched  before 
you  substantially  what  the  President  of  the  United  States,  at  that  time,  as  I  under¬ 
stood,  both  from  his  public  speeches  and  from  his  private  declarations,  said  what  was 
the  best  thing  to  be  done,  we  have  a  right,  in  all  fairness  of  criticism  of  what  has  hap¬ 
pened,  at  least  to  regret  lie  had  not  done  what  our  judgments  now  tell  us  was  best 
he  had  done,  and  what  his  judgment  at  that  time  told  him,  and  he  himself  told  us 
was  best  to  be  done. 

ITS  CONSEQUENCES. 

What  since  has  happened?  The  whole  South,  which  then  stood  ready  to  receive 
the  imprint  of  our  institutions,  of  our  laws,  and  to  establish  equal  justice  and  equal 


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rights  if  we  only  wished  it,  now,  under  the  state  of  things  which  has  since  super¬ 
vened,  has  come  up  to  do  what?  To  claim  their  rights,  their  powers,  and  their 
places  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  again,  to  make  laws  for  us,  and  that, 
too,  in  the  spirit  of  hatred  in  which  they  so  long  fought  us.  Therefore  the  great 
question  to-day  which  divides  the  country,  and  divides  the  President  of  the  United 
States  from  the  majority  of  those  who  supported  him  is  this :  Shall  these  men, 
heretofore  in  rebellion,  without  any  guarantee  that  they  will  not  the  next  day  after 
we  admit  them  again  desert  the  seats  in  which  we  place  them  as  they  have  done 
once  before,  be  received  back  and  allowed  to  make  laws  for  us?  And  upon  that 
question  I  will  endeavor  to  give  you  some  few  of  the  reasons  which  lie  uppermost 
in  my  mind,  why  this  should  not  be  done.  Upon  no  other  question  is  there  any 
serious  division  between  the  President  and  the  party  which  put  him  in  power,  and 
between  them  and  the  opposing  party,  if  so  small  a  fragment  as  is  represented  in 
Congress  can  be  called  a  party.  [Applause.]  This  is  the  division,  and  I  think  it 
is  a  broad  one — so  broad  that  no  loyal  man,  and  no  man  who  fought  the  fight  of  the 
last  four  years  can  doubt  where  his  place  is  now.  Shall  we  receive  these  men  back 
without  guarantee,  without  surety,  without  repentance  even,  to  places  which  they 
voluntarily  deserted?  [Cries  of  “ That  is  the  point,”  “No,”  “No.”]  There  are 
reasons  why  I  think  every  loyal  man  would  say  “No.”  The  first,  not  in  signifi¬ 
cance,  and  perhaps  not  in  order,  but  the  first  we  may  discuss  is  this:  What  right 
have  they  to  come  back?  It  is  said  in  the  first  place  that  the  States  of  this  Union 
could  not  secede  from  the  Union;  that  we  fought  to  prevent  the  States  from  seced¬ 
ing,  that  we  have  conquered,  and  therefore  the  States  not  being  out  of  the  Union, 
their  delegates  in  Congress  have  their  rights  as  the  representatives  of  those  States. 
There  are  two  answers  to  be  made  to  that;  first,  that  no  Representative  in  Congress 
represents  a  State — he  represents  a  district,  and  no  district  as  such,  I  believe, 
attempted  to  rebel,  but  that  would  be  a  technical  answer,  and  not  one  to  be  favored, 
and  as  I  may  be  told  by  an  astute  Senator,  one  that  would  hardly  apply  to  the  Sen¬ 
ators  who  represent  States,  but  the  broader  and  wider,  more  statesmanlike  and  just 
answer  would  seem  to  be  that  the  question  to  be  here  decided  is  not  whether  the 
State  as  a  State  is  in  or  out  of  the  Union,  but  whether  unorganized  communities 
which  were  States,  the  whole  people  of  which  repudiated  all  their  obligations  as 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  who  took  upon  themselves  new  obligations  to  a 
body  which  they  erected,  called  the  Confederate  States,  and  who  fought  for  four  years 
to  get  rid  of  the  power  and  authority  of  the  United  States,  and  who,  at  one  time  or 
another  did  get  rid  of  that  power  and  authority  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time  dur¬ 
ing  those  four  years — sought  to  make  alliances  with  foreign  countries  and  to  dis¬ 
member  the  Union  in  every  form  possible,  and  do  every  conceivable  damage  to  the 
rest  of  the  country — whether  these  as  States  have  a  right  in  the  Union  as  a  parf  of 
the  Government  of  the  Union.  The  question  is  not  whether  their  people  have  a 
right  to  the  protection  of  the  Union,  and  not  whether  their  Territory  is  within  the 
Union.  I  am  one  of  those  who  repudiate  entirely  the  idea  which  is  now  sent  to  us 
from  the  South,  and  which  I  was  very  sorry  to  hear  echoed,  on  the  22d  of  February 
from  the  steps  of  the  White  House,  that  we,  who  do  not  think  these  fragments  of 
States  shivered  from  their  places  by  their  own  treasonable  acts,  ought  to  come  back 
at  once  without  repentance  to  help  govern  us,  are  disunionists.  We  do  not  by  any 
means  agree  upon  any  possible  proposition  that  we  are  disunionists,  because  for  one, 
I  claim  that  not  one  foot  of  Territory  of  the  United  States  was  ever  out  of  the  Union. 
[Applause.]  I  claim,  again,  that  no  citizen  of  the  United  States  on  its  soil  has  ever 
got  out  of  the  Union.  I  claim  further  that  no  citizen  of  the  United  States  has  ever 
rid  himself  of  a  single  obligation  to  the  United  States.  [Great  applause.]  I  claim 
further  that  ho  citizen  has  rid  himself  of  one  particle  of  the  governing  power  of  the 
United  States,  as  exercised  over  him  either  to  restrain  him  in  wrong  or  aid  him  in 
right,  or  to  make  him  do  his  duty  both  as  a  citizen  of  his  State  and  as  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States.  [Long  continued  applause.]  But  I  am  told  I  am  a  disunionist 
because  I  choose  not  to  recognize  an  organization  which,  by  the  people  that  made 
it,  was  made  hostile  to  the  United  States,  and  which  fought  the  United  States  for 
four  years,  as  a  part  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  because  I  insist  that 
organization  was  not  during  all  that  time  a  living  and  vital  part  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States.  I  ought  not  to  be  called  a  disunionist,  because  I  only  insist  that 
a  rebel  government,  composed  of  disloyal  men,  with  their  bayonets  at  my  throat, 
are  not  a  portion  of  those  who  are  voting  with  me,  and  acting  with  me  in  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  of  the  United  States.  [Applause.]  I  am  one  of  those  unfortunate  per¬ 
sons  who  are  not  gifted  with  the  power  to  see  why,  if  these  rebels  are  now  a 
governing  power  of  the  United  States  without  any  further  act  on  their  or  our  part 


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they  were  not  equally  a  portion  of  the  United  States  when  they  were  carrying  on 
the  battle  of  Manassas,  for  instance.  I  do  not  see  why,  if  this  theory  is  correct, 
their  representatives  had  not  as  much  right  to  sit  in  Congress  and  vote  against  sup¬ 
plies  to  the  army  of  General  McClellan  as  your  representatives  had.  Indeed  if  this 
theory  he  correct  I  do  not  see  why,  when  a  portion  of  the  rebels  came  up  to  Gettys¬ 
burg,  they  were  not  to  be  considered  as  carrying  out  their  right  to  help  the  Govern¬ 
ment  of  the  United  States,  for  were  they  not  a  portion  of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  at  that  time?  If  they  were  not  then  but  are  now,  pray  tell  me  when 
the  change  took  place?  When  they  laid  down  their  arms?  Could  that  bring  them 
back? 

OPPOSITION  TO  THE  PRESIDENT’S  POLICY — NO  DISUNIONISM. 

If  this  theory  be  sound,  I  cannot  understand  how  the  proposition  of  Mr.  Yulee 
of  Florida,  in  1861,  that  the  Southern  senators  and  representatives  should  remain 
in  their  seats  to 'prevent  the  enactment  of  force  bills  and  the  like,  can  be  regarded 
as  dishonorable  ;  or  why  indeed  the  seceding  senators  and  representatives  are  not 
entitled  to  their  full  pay  and  mileage  for  the  terms  for  which  they  were  elected.  To 
adopt  this  theory,  indeed,  is  to  acknowledge  that  these  senators  and  representatives 
were  kept  out  of  their  seats  by  a  superior  force  tortiously  exercised,  and  that  every 
act  of  the  Government,  from  that  time  to  this,  save  only  the  executive  efforts  to 
re-instate  the  late  rebels  in  power,  was  revolutionary  in  its  character  and  therefore 
void. 

I  know  of  no  better  way  to  illustrate  this  great  topic  of  discussion  than  by  the 
simile  of  partnership.  A  number  of  partners  join  together  in  a  partnership  for  the 
transaction  of  business.  After  a  while  two  or  three  of  them,  being  in  the  minority, 
choose  to  leave  the  partnership  without  the  assent  of  the  rest  of  the  partners,  pub¬ 
lish  and  proclaim  its  dissolution;  repudiate  its  obligations;  refuse  to  pay  its  debts; 
attempt  to  steal  its  property,  bring  suit  to  dissolve  it  and  are  beaten.  Can  they 
take  the  partnership  property  with  them  against  the  compact  by  which  the  partner¬ 
ship  was  formed?  Clearly  not.  Can  they  bind  the  partnership?  Clearly  not.  Can 
they  destroy  the  partnership?  They  can  as  far  as  they  are  concerned.  Can  they 
get  themselves  out  of  the  partnership?  For  all  of  the  purposes  of  destroying  their 
own  rights  in  the  partnership,  they  can.  Can  they  get  back  into  the  partnership? 
No,  not  until  the  rest  of  the  partners  get  ready,  and  upon  such  terms  as  they  choose. 
[Great  applause.] 

FEBRUARY  TWENTY-SECOND. 

Let  us  follow  this  a  little  further.  I  would  not  deal  on  this  occasion  with  this 
charge  of  disloyalty  and  disunion  against  the  true  and  loyal  men  of  the  North,  if  it 
were  a  mere  newspaper  slander,  or  if  it  came  from  any  quarter  less  respectable  than 
that,  the  quarter  from  which  it  came  on  the  22d  of  February.  I  now  here  ask  the 
people  of  Pennsylvania  whether  they  think  their  honored  representative — and  per¬ 
haps  I  do  no  discredit  to  others  to  speak  of  him  as  their  honored  representative — for 
there  is  no  man  in  Congress  more  honored  by  the  loyal  men  of  the  nation  than  is 
he  who  represents  Pennsylvania  and  who  has  been  denounced  as  a  traitor,  although 
he  has  stood  by  and  seen  his  property  in  flames  because  of  his  devotion  to  his 
country,  whether  they  think  him  disloyal.  [Applause.] 

We  have  been  denounced  as  disunionists  because  we  insist  that  States  can  get  out 
of  the  Union  so  far  as  to  destroy  their  rights  as  a  part  of  the  Government.  Not 
that  they  have  a  right  to  lay  down  their  obligations  to  the  Union. 

It  is  charged  that  we  admit  to  the  right  of  secession.  If  States,  after  having  re¬ 
pudiated  all  their  obligations,  stole  all  the  property  of  the  Union  within  their  bor¬ 
ders,  and  fought  as  long  as  they  could  stand  to  destroy  the  Union,  can  come  back 
into  the  Union  whenever  they  please,  and  take  part  in  the  Government  without 
anybody  saying  why  or  wherefore,  I  do  not  know  why  those  that  claim  that  right 
for  them  do  not  admit  their  power  to  go  out  of  the  Union  whenever  they  please, 
and  without  anybody  saying  why  or  wherefore.  If  the  right  to  come  back  at  plea¬ 
sure  is  claimed  on  the  one  side,  I  pray  somebody  to  ansiver  me  why  it  does  not  ap¬ 
ply  equally  well  to  the  right  to  go  out  on  the  other. 

How  did  those  States  go  out  ?  How  did  the  members  of  Congress  representing 
them  go  out  ?  Mark  now,  when  I  say  “go  out”  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  they  took 
one  single  foot  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States  out  from  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  United  States,  or  made  one  hair  white  or  black  in  the  governmental  relations 
of  any  man  to  the  United  States,  or  of  the  United  States  to  any  man. 

THE  REDUCTIO  AD  ABSURDUM. 

But  what  did  they  do  ?  Whenever  any  one  of  them  chose,  he  rose  in  his  place 
and  said,  “My  State  has  gone  out,  and  I  am  going  out  of  Congress,”  and  took  his 


5 


hat  and  went  to  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  and  drew  bis  salary,  some  times  in  advance, 
and  went  home.  Each  did  that  at  his  own  good  pleasure,  and  I  know  of  neither 
law  nor  constitutional  obligation  that  prevented  his  so  doing.  But  having  once 
taken  himself  out  of  Congress,  supposing  his  State  did  not  agree  to  it  and  refused 
to  endorse  his  act,  will  anybody  say  that  that  man  could  return  to  Congress  and  re¬ 
sume  his  seat  before  Congress  declared  that,  he  was  again  entitled  to  it  ?  No  man 
will  say  that.  Suppose  now,  that  every  one  of  his  constituents,  or  a  great  majority 
of  them,  applaud  his  act,  and  say  that  he  did  rightly  in  thus  leaving  Congress,  and 
fully  sustain  him  in  what  he  has  done,  I  say  that  as  all  must  agree  the  man, 
of  himself,  could  not  come  back  to  Congress  without  a  vote  of  Congress  de¬ 
claring  that  he  was  entitled  to  his  seat,  can  that  constituency  who  have  thus  with¬ 
drawn  their  representative  from  the  halls  of  Congress  send  another  man  to  take  his 
place  until  Congress  shall  say  that  they  may  do  so  ?  Will  any  man  pretend  to  say 
that  Congress  cannot  properly  inquire  by  what  right  that  representative  returns,  and 
whom  he  represents,  whether  a  loyal  or  disloyal  constituency  ?  That  seems  to  be 
the  question  at  issue.  Let  me  repeat  it,  because  I  think  it  covers  the  whole  ground. 
Suppose  any  member  of  Congress  takes  his  hat  and  says,  “I  resign  my  seat  and  am 
going  home,”  not  forgetting  to  take  the  Southern  road  home  byway  of  the  office  of 
the  Sergeant-at-Arms  and  drawing  his  salary,  all  must  agree  that  that  man  cannot 
come  back  to  Congress  until  Congress  shall  readmit  him.  Suppose,  then,  that  the 
constituency  of  that  man,  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  asks  him  to  do  as  he  has 
done  ;  desires  that  he  should  do  so  ;  sustains  him  in  doing  it  and  keeps  their  repre¬ 
sentative  away  for  four  years,  and  then  sends  another  man  to  take  his  place,  can 
any  one  take  the  ground  that  Congress  must  not  inquire  by  what  right  that  repre¬ 
sentative  comes  back  ?  Has  Congress  no  right  to  protect  itself  against  men  getting- 
up  and  leaving  their  seats,  thereby  destroying  a  quorum,  and,  as  the  case  might  be, 
revolutionizing  the  Government  ?  No  one  can  have  any  doubt  on  this  question. 
Does  it  make  the  case  any  the  less  .strong,  because,  for  the  past  four  years,  the  con¬ 
stituency  of  those  members  have  tried  to  destroy  the  Government  by  fighting  against 
it  to  the  extent  of  the  last  man  and  the  last  dollar  that  they  could  raise  ?  It  seems 
to  me  not.  Therefore,  this  proposition  cannot  be  argued  upon  any  of  the  rights  of 
or  the  loyalty  of  the  representatives  themselves.  The  delegate  may  be  loyal,  but 
the  constituency  is  disloyal.  Is  the  disloyalty  of  the  constituency  to  be  represented 
in  the  government  of  the  nation,  because  their  representative  may  happen  to  differ 
from  them  and  be  loyal  to  the  Government  ?  To  test  this  let  us  reverse  the  posi¬ 
tion.  Suppose  a  truly  loyal  Southern  constituency  should,  by  mistake,  elect  a  dis¬ 
loyal  traitor  to  represent  them  ;  shall  he  be  allowed  his  seat  ?  Clearly  not.  The 
remedy  for  such  mistake  is  to  keep  him  out  of  Congress  or  expel  him  if  he  smug¬ 
gles  himself  in,  because  he  does  not  represent  the  loyalty  of  his  constituency.  If, 
then,  a  disloyal  constituency,  by  a  like  mistake,  elect  a  loyal  man — and  they  will 
only  do  it  by  mistake — shall  the  disloyalty  of  the  (constituency  be  represented  be¬ 
cause  they  have  made  a  blunder  and  sent  a  loyal  man  ?  No,  he  should  be  kept  out 
because  he  misrepresents  his  constituency.  The  right  of  representation  does  not 
belong  to  the  person  of  the  representative,  but  to  the  district.  If  that  is  loyal  it  is 
entitled  to  representation.  After  Congress  shall  have  decided  the  position  of  the 
State,  if  that  is  disloyal,  the  supposed  loyalty — always  questionable — of  the  man 
claiming  a  seat  gives  it  no  right  to  take  part  in  the  Government.  The  loyal  man 
dying,  or  his  term  closing,  the  constituency  would  hasten  to  send  one  disloyal  like 
themselves. 

This  seems  to  me  to  dispose  of  the  ad  captandum  statement  sometimes  relied  on 
that  Congress  ought,  whenever  it  finds  a  loyal  man  sent  up  from  any  district  in  the 
South,  to  admit  him  without  inquiring  whether  his  State  is  loyal  and  well-disposed 
to  the  Government  or  not. 

THE  EFFECT  OF  THE  SURRENDER. 

Is  it  not  true  rather  that  it  is  the  first  duty  of  Congress,  in  the  case  of  the  rebel¬ 
lious  States,  to  inquire,  “Is  the  constituency  fit  to  be  represented  in  the  Govern¬ 
ment  ?”  and  then,  “Is  the  man  a  fit  representative  of  the  district  ?” 

But  there  is  another  consideration  bearing  on  this  matter  of  right  of  these  States 
to  a  share  in  the  Government.  It  has  been  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  as  indeed  it  has  been  by  every  court  in  every  civilized  country,  that 
the  war  in  which  we  were  engaged  was  a  public,  territorial  civil  war,  in  which 
every  man  upon  the  soil  held  by  the  enemy  became,  from  the  necessity  of  his  posi¬ 
tion,  a  public  enemy — every  man ;  that  is  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  if 
I  have  any  of  my  old  Democratic  friends  here,  you  remember  how  much  we  believe 
in  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court.  [Laughter.]  Now,  then,  has  anything 


6 


been  done  to  alter  the  condition  of  these  men  from  public  enemies  ?  We  captured 
in  public  war  all  these  enemies,  all  their  lands,  all  their  negroes,  all  their  property  ; 
all  became  ours  by  the  right  of  the  conquerors  ;  and  can  you  tell  me  why  we  did 
not  capture  in  war  all  their  rights,  constitutional  and  otherwise — if  they  had  any  ? 
[Applause.] 

They  surrendered  everything  under  the  terms  of  the  surrender  with  General 
Grant  and  General  Sherman — terms,  too,  sufficiently  favorable  for  them,  some  peo¬ 
ple  think.  What  were'  the  terms  of  that  surrender,  by  which  they  all  are  bound  ? 
The  terms  were  that  they  might  go  home  and  live  unmolested  so  long  as  they  be¬ 
haved  well.  Was  any  right  given  them  by  that  surrender,  either  political,  govern¬ 
mental  or  otherwise  ?  By  the  surrender  of  their  representatives  in  the  field,  every 
right  that  the  South  as  a  people  had  was  surrendered  to  us.  If  there  are  any  loyal 
men  in  the  South,  and  I  hope  there  are  a  few  who  have  remained  loyal  during  the 
whole  time,  as  individuals  they  may  have  other  and  different  rights,  but  they  are 
not  now  distinctly  asking  Congress  for  admission.  When  the  truly  loyal  men  of 
the  Southern  States,  or  any  of  them,  white  or  black — men  who  have  never  swerved 
in  their  loyalty  to  their  country — shall  ask  it,  I  have  no  doubt  that  Congress  will 
admit  their  representatives.  For  one,  I  shall  never  make  any  objection.  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 

I  believe  that  the  great  controversy  now  is,  whether  the  truly  loyal  men  of  the 
South,  who  have  always  remained  loyal,  shall  be  represented  in  Congress,  or  those 
who  have  been  disloyal,  who  agree  that  they  have  always  been  disloyal,  and  who 
now  say  that  they  would  continue  to  be  disloyal  except  that  they  surrendered  to* 
brute  force,  and  accept  the  situation.  Therefore,  are  we  disunionists because  we  are 
unwilling  that  such  men  should  be  represented  and  make  laws  for  us  in  the  Union  ? 

REORGANISATION  SHOULD  BE  UPON  THE  BASIS  OF  EQUAL  RIGHTS. 

There  is  another  objection  to  their  admission  at  present.  I  find  that  by  their  own 
act  society  in  these  rebellious  States  is  disorganized,  and  has  to  be  organized  anew. 
In  this  the  President  does  not  disagree  with  me,  nor  with  the  majority  of  the  loyal 
men  of  the  country  ;  for  he  proclaims  that  they  must  be  organized  anew,  and  ap¬ 
points  provisional  governors  over  them,  and  gives  authority  and  prescribes  terms 
for  reorganization.  It  seems  to  me  that  rebellious  States  ought  to  be  organized  upon 
the  basis  of  republicanism  and  justice  before  they  become  a  part  of  the  Government. 

Ah,  I  am  afraid  that  I  hear  some,  who  have  not  yet  quite  come  up  to  the  true 
standard  of  justice,  say  to  himself  the  speaker  is  in  favor  of  negro  equality.  I  pray 
you,  my  doubting  friend,  if  such  there  be,  don’t  misunderstand  me.  I  am  for  no 
kind  or  class  of  sectional  equality ;  I  am  for  equal  rights  and  justice  to  all  men. 
[Applause.]  And  therefore  I  say — (and  this  I  understand  to  be  the  impregnable 
basis  of  the  Union  party  upon  this  question) — fix  the  standard  of  political  equality 
wherever  you  please,  make  such  a  qualification  for  a  political  franchise  as  you 
please,  and  when  any  man  comes  up  to  the  standard  and  has  that  qualification  which 
you  have  established,  then  let  him  vote.  [Applause.]  I  believe  in  the  words  of 
the  lamented  Lincoln,  who  expressed  this  idea  better  than  I  have  ever  seen  it  ex¬ 
pressed  anywhere  else,  that  “every  man  has  the  right  to  be  the  equal  of  every  other 
man.”  [Applause.]  It  is  not  quite  correct  to  say  that  every  man  is  lorn  the  equal 
of  every  other  man,  because  there  are  social  differences  among  men — .differences  in 
wealth,  differences  in  position,  that  make  a  practical  inequality.  Nor  is  it  quite  cor¬ 
rect  to  say  that  every  man  is  the  equal  of  every  other  man  ;  but  it  is  exactly  right, 
just,  republican,  and  I  had  almost  added  divine,  to  say  that  every  man  has  the  right 
to  be  the  equal  of  every  other  man,  if  he  can.  [Applause..]  And  upon  that  prin¬ 
ciple  of  democratic  republicanism  we  take  our  stand,  and  sink  or  swim,  live  or  die, 
survive  or  perish,  upon  that  principle  of  justice,  before  high  heaven,  the  Union 
party — I  know  no  party  but  the  Union  men  of  the  country — must  stand  if  they  ex¬ 
pect  either  success  in  this  world  or  the  smiles  of  the  other.  [Applause.]  There 
would  seem,  therefore,  to  be  a  right  somewhere  in  the  Government’s  right  to  have 
this  principle  recognized  in  the  reorganization  of  society  and  political  communities 
where  they  are  disorganized.  But,  say  some  (and  it  is  thought  to  be  a. conclusive 
argument,)  in  Pennsylvania,  in  Illinois,  and  in  other  loyal  States,  a  difference  is 
made  as  to  political  rights,  and  therefore  how  can  you  insist  upon  an  equal  right  of 
suffrage  in  the  South  ?  To  that  I  answer,  when  Pennsylvania  or  Illinois  becomes 
rebellious  and  fights  the  Government  for  four  years — loses  all  her  political  and  gov¬ 
ernmental  organizations — gets  all  her  rights  captured,  and  then  comes  and  asks  of 
me  a  new  status  in  the  country  and  to  take  a  new  share  in  the  Government,  then  I 
will  be  ready  to  prescribe,  as  a  condition  precedent,  equality  and  justice  to  Penn- 


7 


sylvania  ;  but  until  that  time  it  is  none  of  my  business.  [Applause.]  I  think  such 
must  be  the  answer  to  the  suggestion,  and  I  have  never  been  able  to  see  any  reply 
to  that  answer.  The  people  of  the  South  ask  us — having  forfeited  all  their  rights — 
having,  as  rebels,  no  right  on  earth,  save  one — to  be  hanged — [applause] — we  cap¬ 
tured  all  their  other  rights — having  no  other  right  but  that  under  any  law,  under 
any  constitution,  holding  everything  else  from  the  clemency  of  the  conqueror — re¬ 
ceiving  everything  else  because  we  choose  to  give  it  to  them — and  thus  only  they 
get  it — come  and  ask  of  us  political  rights  and  a  share  in  the  Government.  May  we 
not  say,  in  the  language  of  the  old  proverb,  “that  beggars  should  not  be  choosers,” 
and  that  they  should  take  such  rights  as  we  offer  them,  because  they  have  no  share 
whatever  in  this  Government,  and  are  and  must  be  but  beggars  at  the  door  of  this 
Government,  and  of  its  Congress,  and  of  its  Executive. 

WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN. 

I  hear  some  one  say,  “You  are  very  severe  upon  the  South  ;  you  are  very  harsh.” 

I  pray  you  judge  me.  The  worst  thing  I  ever  said  of  them  I  say  to  you  here.  I 
would  like  to  have  seen,,  if  I  could,  two  representative  men  tried  by  the  laws  of  the 
country  they  have  outraged,  and  punished,  as  an  example,  if  they  were  found 
guilty ;  but  two  out  of  the  thousands  that  might  be  dealt  with  under  the  laws;  and  I 
desire  to  see  every  mischief-maker,  in  the  olden  time  and  in  the  present,  who  de¬ 
serted  his  flag  or  his  seat  in  Congress  to  aid  in  overthrowing  the  Government,  sent 
out  of  the  country,  with  the  loss  of  his  wealth,  as  a  small  punishment  for  the  great 
crimes  which  he  has  committed,  at  a  cost  to  us  of  half  a  million  of  lives  and  four 
billions  of  treasure ;  and  when  I  want  everybody  else  who  is  not  satisfied  with  the 
government  of  this  country  to  leave  the  country  and  “go  at  once,  and  not  stand  on 
the  order  of  his  going,”  and  never  come  back,  and  that  I  do  not  desire  that  those 
who  have  tried  to  overthrow  the  Government  shall  take  part  in  the  Government, 
at  least  till  after  a  reasonable  probation,  I  trust  I  am  not  to  be  accused  of  being  very 
blood  thirsty.  I  say  further,  that  I  am  willing  that  even  such  men  shall  go  to  their 
homes,  and  that  those  who  have  not  sinned  too  much  should  enjoy  their  property 
much  better  than  some  men  whose  property  happened  to  lie  in  the  march  of  the 
rebel  army  to  Gettysburg  can  enjoy  theirs.  That  I  am  willing  that  every  man  who 
took  part  in  this  rebellion  should  be  protected  in  person,  property,  life,  liberty  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness,  except  those  who,  in  language  that  we  all  reverence,  have 
“sinned  away  the  day  of  grace.”  While  I  say  I  am  willing- that  the  great  majority 
should  be  thus  protected,  I  am  not  willing  that  they  should  come  here  and  make 
laws  for  me.  That  is  what  they  claim,  and  it  is  to  that  I  object,  and  upon  that  dif¬ 
ference  I  stand  and  shall  ever  stand.  [Applause.] 

But  why  am  I  unwilling  that  they  should  make  laws  for  me  ?  I  have  fought  to 
maintain  the*right  to  say  they  shall  not ;  I  have  given  my  son  and  my  brother  to 
death ;  I  have  impoverished  my  country  to  achieve  this  right  to  say  they  shall  not. 
Every  man  here  can  say  so.  Every  man  here  has  the  right  to  say  so.  You  have 
given  your  sons ;  you,  young  man,  have  given  your  father  ;  you,  fair  woman,  have 
give  your  husband  and  brothers,  and  perhaps  one  as  dear  as  either  ;  you  all  have 
taxed  yourselves  to  an  extent  never  before  experienced  by  a  civilized  people,  and 
all  for  what  ?  All  to  vindicate  the  right  of  loyal  men  of  the  United  States  to  make 
laws  for  the  whole  United  States  against  those  who  rebelled  against  the  United 
States,  and  that  is  all  you  fought  for ;  and  if  you  now  yield,  either  through  the  Pre¬ 
sident  or  through  Congress,  the  right  you  have  thus  maintained,  your  brothers  and 
sons  and  husbands  and  fathers  have  been  uselessly  murdered,  and  your  taxation  is 
a  burden,  a  shame  and  a  degradation  that  you  ought  not  longer  to  support.  [Ap¬ 
plause.]  If  this  right  is  lost,  all  is  lost.  We  ask,  and  I  put  it  to  the  fair  judgment 
of  every  man,  leaving  out  all  party  predilections,  is  it  too  much  to  ask,  after  all  this 
sacrifice,  simply  that  disloyal  traitors  shall  no  longer  make  laws  to  govern  the  loyal 
people  of  the  United  States,  white,  black  or  gray.  [Applause.] 

THE  EXPEDIENCY  OF  THE  THING. 

Beside  the  right  which  I  claim,  that  they  shall  not  make  laws,  look  a  moment  at 
the  expediency.  I  judge  these  men  at  the  South  very  much  as  I  choose  that  they 
should  judge  me.  I  believe  that  they  do  pretty  much  what  I  should  do  if  I  stood  in 
their  place ;  and  now  I  ask  any  man  here — if  you  honestly,  and  thinking  you  were 
in  the  right,  had  rebelled  against  the  Government  of  the  United  States — if  you  had 
given  your  sons  and  your  brothers  to  fight  against  that  Government — if  you  had 
spent  your  whole  substance  in  fighting  against  that  Government — if  you  had  only 
yielded  because  you  could  not  help  it — because  you  were  bound  hand  and  fool,  and 
could  resist  no  longer — I  ask  again,  would  you  vote,  if  anybody  was  so  foolish  as  to 


8 


put  a  ballot  in  your  hand  for  such  purpose,  to  pay  the  debt  -which  the  United  States 
had  incurred  in  whipping  you  ?  Now,  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  have  so  much  of 
“old  Adam”  in  me  that  I  would  not.  If  I  should  say,  as  some  of  the  men  who  live 
in  the  South  now  say,  that  “I  do  not  like  you  any  better  because  you  have  whipped 
us,”  I  should  say,  as  they  say,  “I  never  agreed  to  pay  your  debt,  and  it  is  asking 
too  much  of  poor  human  nature  to  ask  me  to  vote  to  pay  the  debt  that  you  incurred 
in  whipping  me.”  [A  voice — “We  will  make  them  pay  it.”]  [Applause.] 

How  shall  we  make  them  pay  it  ?  By  giving  them  power  enough  in  Congress  to 
repudiate  our  own  debt  and  force  theirs  upon  us  ?  Therefore,  because  of  the  danger 
of  repudiation  of  the  public  debt,  I  say  I  would  not  like  to  have  them  to  come  in 
and  take  part  in  the  Government,  because  I  hold  that  the  national  faith,  beyond 
everything  else,  is  dear,  and  we  have  pledged  our  faith  to  our  own  citizens  and  to 
foreigners  that  this  debt,  incurred  in  our  extremity,  should  be  paid,  and  though  it 
takes  the  last  chair  in  the  house  and  the  last  cow  in  the  barn,  it  shall  be  paid.  [Ap¬ 
plause.  ] 

But  if  you  allow  the  Senators  and  Representatives  from  the  Southern  States  to 
come  into  Congress,  there  is  no  man  that  doubts  that  they  will  vote  for  tlie  repudia¬ 
tion  of  our  debt.  They  all,  so  far  as  I  know,  agree  upon  that,  or  if  our  debt  be  not 
repudiated,  they  will  vote  that  their  own  debt,  incurred  in  the  attempt  to  whip  us, 
shall  be  assumed  by  us;  and  as  I  said,  if  I  were  they  I  would  not  vote  to  pay  the 
debt  incurred  in  whipping  them;  so  you  may  be  quite  sure  that  I  would  not  pay  any 
portion  of  the  debt  that  they  incurred  in  trying  to  whip  us.  Of  that  you  may  be 
certain.  So  if  that  is  saddled  upon  us  it  is  virtual  repudiation  of  the  whole,  both 
theirs  and  ours. 

If  we  admit  these  Senators  and  Representatives  to  Congress  without  requiring 
further  guarantees  than  they  have  yet  offered,  there  is  not  a  man  in  the  country, 
who  has  a  dollar  invested  in  any  of  the  United  States  securities,  but  will  soon  find 
that  his  investment  is  not  worth  half  the  value  expressed  on  its  face;  there  is  not  a 
bank  in  the  United  States  that  is  not  in  fact  broken;  there  is  not  a  savings  bank 
that  is  not  bankrupt;  there  is  not  a  man  who  invested  in  United  States  securities 
that  can  reckon  them  -worth  one  dollar  with  any  certainty.  Therefore  when  they 
call  us  “radicals” — we  who  are  trying  to  do  what  we  can  to  preserve  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  and  Government  from  the  hands  of  rebels — we  who  are  trying  to  pay  the  pub¬ 
lic  debt  of  the  country — we  who  are  trying  to  preserve  and  maintain  the  dignity 
and  integrity  of  the  Government — we  should  rather  glory  in  the  term,  had  it  not 
been  used  in  a  term  of  reproach ;  yet  in  truth  we  are  the  great  conservative  party — 
the  party  preserving  the  rights  of  the  Government — the  power  of  the  Government 
— the  obligations  of  the  Government — the  debts  of  the  Government  from  the  des¬ 
truction  of  rebels  and  their  associates. 

THE  PRESIDENT’S  POLICY. 

Noav  then  if  we  agree — and  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  trespassed  upon  you  patience 
so  long  in  putting  forward  this  proposition — that  it  is  not  well  to  have  these  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  South  in  Congress  without  further  guarantees,  then  let  us  see  as 
to  the  means  of  keeping  them  out. 

The  President  of  the  United  States — and  when  I  speak  of  him  I  propose  to  do  it, 
as  I  trust  I  have  done,  with  all  the  respect  due  his  high  office,  and  with  no  feeling 
of  personal  unkindness — because  I  have  known  him  for  a  good  many  years — I  knew 
him  when  we  both  voted  for  Breckinridge — [applause] — I  remember  him  as  long- 
ago  as  when  certain  people  voted  that  he  should  not  speak  where  I  am  now  speak¬ 
ing — [applause] — and  I  have  never  received  anything  at  his  hands  but  personal 
kindness  and  consideration — and  while  I  know  that  I  am  following  the  honest  dic¬ 
tates  of  my  judgment  and  experience,  I  am  bound  to  accord  to  him  the  integrity 
of  purpose,  therefore  in  all  that  I  may  say  I  want  to  be  expressly  understood  as 
dealing  with  the  acts  of  a  public  officer,  following  out  the  best  dictates  of  his  honest 
judgment — the  President  of  the  United  States  insists,  as  his  policy,  that  these 
rebellious  States,  having  now  repudiated  the  ordinance  of  secession  (and  I  am  sure 
if  that  ordinance  was  void,  I  don’t  see  how  the  repudiation  of  it  could  make  any 
difference),  and  having  passed  the  constitutional  amendment  abolishing  slavery 
(neither  can  I  see  how  that  can  make  any  difference  in  their  governmental  relations 
with  the  rest  of  the  country,  though  I  observe  that  many  of  them  passed  it  under 
protest),  having  done  these  two  things,  and  having  repudiated,  as  States,  the  con¬ 
federate  debt,  that  thereupon  they  are  at  once  entitled  to  admission,  by  their  repre¬ 
sentatives,  into  equal  power,  in  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States, 
and  by  their  Senators,  into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  that  each  Senator 


9 

and  each  Representative  has  the  same  rights  in  this  Government  as  your  Senators 
and  Representatives  from  Pennsylvania  have. 

This  I  understand  to  be  the  proposition  of  the  President,  and  I  mean  to  state  it 
respectfully,  as  I  would  state  the  well  matured  theory  of  any  high  officer.  What 
further  does  he  say?  He  says  that  whoever  does  not  believe  and  act  upon  that 
belief — that  this  theory  or  policy  of  his  is  the  true  one,  he  is  a  disunionist  and  a 
traitor.  Am  I  not  right?  And  that  Congress,  or  the  Union  majority  of  Congress, 
who  do  not  believe,  and  will  not  act  upon  this  theory,  are  traitors,  disuniouists, 
seeking  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  country  by  factious  opposition  to  the  true  inter¬ 
ests  of  the  country,  and  have  in  a  revolutionary  manner  established  a  central 
directory  by  delegating  their  constitutional  powers  to  a  committee  of  fifteen,  whom 
a  high  officer  of  the  Government  has  dubbed  as  an  “obstruction  committee.”  If 
any  gentleman  thinks  that  I  have  not  stated  the  President’s  position  with  fairness, 
I  beg  to  be  corrected. 

WHAT  MAY  HAPPEN. 

Now,  if  the  President  of  the  United  States  so  believes,  and  I  am  bound  to  suppose 
that  he  does,  what  is  clearly  his  duty  following  out  the  logic  of  his  position?  His 
duty,  it  seems  to  me,  would  be  in  some  constitutional  and  proper  method,  to  rid  the 
country  of  such  a  Congress  with  its  factious  central  directory  of  traitors  and  dis- 
unionists  who  are  disturbing  the  peace  of  the  country.  Would  not  any  one  suppose 
that  that  was  his  duty?  Assuming  now  that  he  believes  exactly  wliat  he  says — and 
I  must  believe  that  he  does  or  he  would  not  say  it — that  the  majority  in  Congress 
who  are  opposing  the  policy  of  at  once  admitting  these  Southern  representatives, 
are  a  factious,  central  directory  (for  I  use  his  words),  opposing  and  hindering  the 
establishment  of  peace  in  the  country,  and  are  traitors  (and  some  he  called  by  name 
as  traitors),  what  is  his  duty?  What  would  you  do,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  you  were  in 
the  Executive  chair  and  had  had  to  deal  such  a  body  of  men  as  lie  describes  them 
to  be?  I  know  very  well,  though  I  may  be  a  little  extreme,  what  I  would  do  if 
I  found  a  body  of  traitors  and  disunionists  attempting  to  disturb  the  country.  I 
shonld  be  active  in  season  and  out  of  season  in  devising  ways  and  means  to  get  rid 
of  them.  How  can  the  President  get  rid  of  them?  If  he  believes  what  he  says  he 
believes,  he  ought  to  disperse  them.  Any  man  who  believes  that  Congress  is  of 
the  complexion  and  dangerous  character  that  the  President  insisted  that  it  was  in 
his  22d  of  February  speech — and  that  speech  was  well  considered,  because  he  made 
it  the  test  of  his  support  in  Connecticut;  [Applause.]  I  say  any  man  so  believing 
ought  to  rid  the  country  of  such  a  body  of  traitors  and  disunionists.  Therefore,  I 
say  that  if  this  well  considered  doctrine  of  the  President,  thoroughly  determined 
upon  as  stated,  is  the  true  doctrine,  then  Congress  should  be  sent  away  from  the 
capitol  to  prevent  further  mischief,  or  at  least  this  factious  portion  of  it  deprived 
of  power,  for  there  ought  to  be  no  hundred  and  fifty  men — traitors,  disunionists,  a 
central  directory  disturbing  the  peace  of  the  country — sitting  anywhere.  That  is 
very  clear. 

How  can  this  be  done  ?  There  has  been  but  one  way  suggested.  Suppose 
the  President  calls  together  a  Congress,  after  this  Congress  adjourns  (provided 
it  ever  does  adjourn),  and  twenty -two  Senators  come  from  the  eleven  seceded  States, 
combine  with  these  fifteen  Senators  (including  two  from  Pennsylvania)  who  favor 
their  admission,  and  when  those  thirty-seven  men  get  together,  thus  making  a 
majority  in  the  Senate,  the  President  recognizes  that  majority  as  the  Senate;  and 
ought  he  not  thus  to  recognize  them  if  they  all  have  equal  rights?  He  says  every 
Senator  from  a  seceded  State  has  as  much  right  to  his  seat  as  your  Senators  from 
Pennsylvania,  and  the  Senators  from  Pennsylvania  seem  to  agree  with  him,  because 
they  are  willing  to  act  with  him.  If  the  President  is  right,  by  that  plan,  there  is  a 
majority  of  the  Senate,  and  the  other  thirty  odd  Senators  who  have  been  elected 
from  the  North,  become  thus  what  he  describes  them  to  be,  a  mere  faction.  Then 
suppose  some  sixty  Representatives  come  up  from  the  South,  and  they  join  with 
some  few  Representatives  from  Pennsylvania — because  I  believe  that  Pennsylvania 
is  not  so  unanimously  one  way  in  the  House  as  she  is  in  the  Senate  [applause],  and 
joining  with  other  northern  democrats  who  believe  the  South  are  right — who  hon¬ 
estly  believe  they  are  right  (because  I  propose  to  consider  every  man  acting  in  high 
governmental  function  as  honest),  and  by  that  means,  with  the  fifty  representatives 
who  favor  their  admission  (be  the  same  more  or  less),  they  make  a  majority  in  the 
lower  House  of  Congress,  which  the  President  also  recognizes  as  the  rightful  House, 
when  this  is  done  have  we  not  got  a  President  and  a  Senate  and  a  Congress  with¬ 
out  counting  a  single  loyal  man?  [applause  and  laughter] — I  beg  pardon  for  a  slip 
of  the  tongue — without  counting  a  single  man  who  votes  as  I  think  a  loyal  man 
ought  to  vote  ?  [Applause.]  Would  this  be  a  Congress  according  to  all  the  forms  of 


10 


tlie  Constitution?  Would  not  the  President,  in  organizing  such  a  Congress,  he  hut 
following  out  the  exact  logic  of  his  well  considered,  oft  repeated  and  reiterated  dec¬ 
larations?  And  when  that  time  comes,  I  am  going  to  leave  you  to  reflect  upon 
what,  if  any,  may  he  the  constitutional  remedy  of  loyal  men.  I  do  not  mean  to  he 
an  alarmist,  hut  I  do  not  think  I  am  wrong  in  suggesting  what  seems  to  me  a  peace¬ 
able,  constitutional  means  of  getting  the  Southern  Senators  and  Representatives 
back  without  any  violation  of  the  Constitution  if  the  President’s  theory  of  the 
rights  of  these  people  is  correct  and  against  the  protest  of  every  truly  loyal  man. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  a  moment,  because  it  is  a  little  abstruse,  and  perhaps  I  have 
not  made  myself  quite  clear. 

Agreeing  that  all  Senators  and  Representatives  elected  North  and  South  have 
equal  rights  (which  is  President’s  doctrine),  suppose  upon  the  day  of  the  first 
meeting  of  Congress,  by  some  accident,  as  the  non-arrival  of  a  train,  only  a  majority 
of  Congress  convene  and  organize,  and  the  next  day,  when  the  rest  of  tlie  members 
come,  a  majority  only  of  those  who  met  the  day  before,  taking  advantage  of  the  acci¬ 
dent  that  prevented  the  arrival  of  the  rest  of  the  members,  will  not  receive  them, 
and  the  Senate  having  acted  in  the  same  way,  both  Houses  say,  “we  are  organ¬ 
ized — we  are  the  judges  of  the  qualifications  of  our  members:  we  will  not  let  you 
in:  you  did  not  get  here  in  season,”  or  for  any  other  reason  because  a  factious, 
traitorous,  central  directory  would  do  almost  anything,  good  or  bad,  without  a  rea¬ 
son.  Now,  then,  under  those  circumstances,  if  that  minority  so  left  out  should 
meet  with  a  few  members  from  the  sitting  Houses,  joining  them  to  make  a  majority 
somewhere  else,  would  it  not  be  the  duty  of  the  President,  under  such  circum¬ 
stances,  to  recognize  the  majority  Houses  so  having  met,  approve  their  acts,  send 
his  messages  to  them,  and  would  not  their  acts  become  laws,  and  w'ould  not  the 
other  factious  minorities  be  simply  two  debating  societies,  more  or  less  valuable, 
sitting  when  they  happened  to  meet?  Would  not  that  be  the  exact  parallel  which 
I  put?  Well,  now,  it  is  the  misfortune  of  our  Southern  friends  that  the  train  which 
should  have  brought  them  to  Washington  has  been  switched  off  for  four  years;  it  is 
a  pretty  long  time  that  they  have  been  kept  out  of  Congress,  but  now  they  claim 
that  they  have  arrived  ;  they  are  before  Congress  with  full  rights  ;  the  President  recog¬ 
nizes  their  rights,  but  the  majority  of  Congress  refuses  to  recognize  them.  Why, 
then,  should  not  those  who  vote  now  in  Congress  for  their  recognition  go  into  ses¬ 
sion  with  them,  and  then  the  President  can  say  to  this  new  body  of  late  traitors 
and  their  sympathizers,  I  address  my  messages  to  you;  I  recognise  your  authority; 
I  execute  your  laws,  and  I  do  not  recognize  the  other;  when  its  members  choose  to 
come  in  and  sit  with  you,  then  they  can  have  their  share  of  the  government,  other¬ 
wise  they  are  simply  a  factious,  traitorous  minority.  Each  House  it  is  true  is  the 
judge  of  the  qualifications  of  its  own  members,  but  the  only  question  would  be, 
“  Which  is  the  Congress?”  and  of  that  question  the  President  is  the  sole  judge,  so 
far  as  executive  recognition  goes. 

A  LOYAL  CITIZENS  DUTY. 

That,  you  say,  may  not  be  done  to-day.  I  agree  with  you ;  I  don’t  think  that 
there  is  quite  courage  enough  to  do  that  to-day  ;  there  are  not  quite  men  enough 
in  the  lower  house,  added  to  all  that  will  come  from  the  South,  so  long  as  a 
negro  is  counted  but  three-fifths  of  a  man,  and  is  not  allowed  to  have  any  voice  in 
whom  he  sends.  But  suppose — and  this  point  I  wish  to  put  to  every  thinking  man 
in  all  fairness  and  honesty  of  thought — suppose  in  the  next  Congress  your  present 
loyal,  true  men  of  the  majority  are  not  sustained,  and  there  come  to  it  from  the 
non-seceding  States  sixty  or  seventy  men  who  vote  or  are  ready  to  vote  and  act  upon 
the  proposition  that  every  one  of  those  Southern  members  is  as  much  entitled  to  his 
seat  as  himself,  and  with  that  sixty  or  seventy,  joined  with  those  who  may  come  up 
from  the  seceded  States,  a  new  House  and  Senate,  by  the  admission  of  twenty. two 
members,  are  formed,  leaving  out  every  loyal  man  and  rendering  him  powerless  by 
his  vote  to  determine  whether  these  late  traitors  shall  come  back,  under  such  a  state 
of  facts,  not  an  impossible  one — no,  nor  an  improbable  one — I  ask  twTo  questions : 
first,  what  is  your  seven-thirty  bond  worth  ?  Another  question  I  ask,  if  you  desire 
any  remedy,  what  remedy  can  you  have  ?  Therefore,  I  hold  it  to  be  the  bounden 
duty  of  every  man  to  himself,  to  the  faith  pledged  to  the  debt  of  his  country,  that 
we  all  desire  to  pay — nay,  more,  to  the  country  itself — to  see  to>  it  that  the  loyal  men 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  of  the  Senate  in  Congress  assembled  are  fully 
sustained  by  the  people,  so  that  no  one  of  them  be  missing  when  the  roll  of  the  next 
Congress  shall  be  called.  The  question,  “Who  is  President?”  will  then  be  of  very 
little  consequence,  because,  as  we  have  seen  very  lately,  if  a  law  is  right,  with  such 
majorities  as  we  now"  have,  it  can  be  passed,  the  veto  of  the  President  to  the  con- 


11 


trary  notwithstanding.  [Great  applause.]  We  need  not  fear  to  take  the  issue  if 
Congress  remains  true.  The  issue  has  been  made  in  the  weakest  of  our  sister 
States — Connecticut — and  with  the  whole  power  of  the  Administration,  not  a  thou¬ 
sand  Republican  votes  were  swerved  from  their  true  allegiance  to  principle.  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 

THE  VETOES. 

Let  us  spend  a  moment  in  examining  the  other  differences  between  the  President 
and  Congress.  A  difference  has  been  shown  in  two  vetoes — one  of  the  Freedmen’s 
Bureau  bill.  I  think  that  there  were  defects  in  the  bill ;  one  of  which  (not  the  one 
upon  which  it  was  vetoed,  however,)  would  have  been  conclusive  in  my  mind 
against  it.  It  gave  the  President  power  to  appoint  civilians  as  assistants  in  the 
Freedmen’s  Bureau,  and  in  any  number  that  he  chose,  in  any  State  in  the  Union, 
and  I  saw  nothing  in  it  to  prevent  him  from  making  each  former  master,  on  every 
plantation,  an  officer  in  the  Freedmen’s  Bureau,  to  take  care  of  his  own  slaves,  and 
thus  the  old  system  of  slavery  would  be  revived.  If  that  bill  had  been  presented 
to  me  I  am  afraid,  if  I  had  not  agreed  beforehand  to  sign  it,  I  might  vetoed  it  as 
the  President  did.  But  upon  that  bill  a  fair  difference  of  opinion  existed,  and 
the  Union  majority  of  Congress,  standing  up  to  the  question  justly,  said  while 
many  of  them  were  in  favor  of  the  bill,  “We  are  not  quite  able  to  overcome  the 
scruples  raised-in  our  minds  by  the  veto  of  the  President.”  I  do  not  think  that  had 
he  stopped  there  that  any  man — any  Republican — would  have  had  a  right  to  have 
shown  any  division  with  the  President  of  the  United  States,  however  much  he  might 
have  been  provoked  to  do  it  by  the  praisings  arid  pettings  of  that  functionary  by 
the  opposite  party.  But  then  camethe  22d  of  February  speech,  which,  again,  I  say 
is  put  forward,  upon  reflection,  as  a  policy,  and  upon  that  the  Republican  majority 
in  Congress  and  the  President  cannot  possibly  stand  together — one  or  the  other 
must  yield. 

Then  came  up  the  civil  rights  bill.  This  bill  simply  enacts  that  a  negro,  under 
the  laws  of  the  United  States,  shall  have  the  right  to  sue  and  to  be  sued,  to  take 
hold  and  to  transmit  property,  to  make  contracts,  to  sell  and  to  buy  as  he  chooses,  as 
other  men  may  do.  Now,  is  there  any  man  who  will  say  that  this  is  not  just  and 
right  ?  We  do  not  now  touch  the  vexed  question  of  voting,  but  contend  that  the 
same  civil  rights  should  pertain  to  the  negro  that  we  give  to  every  other  man, 
whether  foreign  or  native.  Can  there  be  any  objection?  These  are  the  principles 
of  the  bill.  Were  they  vetoed  ?  Not  quite.  What  was  vetoed  ?  The  machinery 
by  which  these  rights  were  to  be  preserved.  The  bill  provided  that  the  courts  of 
the  United  States  should  take  certain  extraordinary  measures  to  give  the  negro  pro¬ 
tection  in  his  rights  against  the  unfriendly  legislation  of  the  States.  Where  did  the 
framers  of  the  bill  get  that  machinery  ?  They  examined  the  statute  books  and 
found  a  law  of  Congress,  passed  some  years  ago,  under  the  light  of  the  best  talent 
that  ever  was  in  Congress — passed  by  the  Congress  in  which  Clay  and  the  other 
great  Southern  luminaries  in  legislation  took  part — a  very  cunningly  and  well  de¬ 
vised  system  of  legislation  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  master  in  the  slave  against 
unfriendly  State  legislation  in  the  North.  They  put  into  the  civil  rights  bill  almost 
in  so  many  words  the  provisions  of  the  fugitive  slave  law,  which  was  framed  to 
protect  the  master  in  his  right  in  the  negro  against  all  unfriendly  legislation  in  the 
North.  Now,  while  some  good  Republicans  might  well  quarrel  with  the  constitu¬ 
tionality  of  such  provisions,  yet  it  would  seem  that  the  Southern  States  were  commit¬ 
ted  to  them,  for  if  these  provisions  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  were  constitutional  to 
preserve  the  rights  of  the  master  to  his  slave,  against  unfriendly  legislation,  it  would 
seem  that  they  were  equally  constitutional  to  preserve  the  rights  of  slaves  against  the 
master  from  unfriendly  legislation.  Therefore  it  is  that  you  will  find,  upon  compari¬ 
son,  that  the  machinery  of  the  bill,  by  which  the  civil  rights  of  the  negro  are  to  be  pro¬ 
tected,  is  almost  word  for  word  the  same  as  the  machinery  by  which,  in  1850,  the 
master  undertook  to  protect  his  rights  to  the  negro  against  unfriendly  legislation.  It 
was  supposed  that  the  whole  Southern  country  was  pledged  to  that,  and  that  the 
President  would  agree  to  that  machinery,  as,  in  his  place  in  Congress,  he  had  three 
times  voted  that  same  machinery  constitutional  to  protect  the  master  in  his  rights 
to  the  negro.  [Applause.]  Yet  that  same  machinery,  in  the  civil  rights  bill,  he 
vetoed  as  unconstitutional.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  as  if  the  President  has  objec¬ 
tions  to  acting  with  the  truly  loyal  party  of  the  country  in  framing  legislation  to 
protect  the  country  against  the  acts  of  Southern  traitors.  If  I  am  mistaken  in  this, 
and  I  sincerely  hope  it  will  appear  I  am ;  if  lie-,  by  his  acts,  shall  show  that  he  stands 
where  he  stood  one  year  ago — on  the  first  day  of  May — when  he  declared  the  very 
principles  and  measures  which  I  have  asserted  here  to-night  for  the  restoration  of 


12 


the  Union ;  when  he  insisted  that  treason  was  a  crime  and  that  it  should  be  pun¬ 
ished,  and  that  traitors  should  be  made  odious,  no  man  will  more  heartily 
welcome  him  back  into  the  ranks  of  those  who  elected  him  to  power  than  I  Will ; 
but  until  that  time  I  must  ask  him  to  explain  how  and  why  it  is  that  we  are  at  so  great 
a  variance,  we  standing  where  he  stood  a  year  ago,  and  he  standing  so  nearly  where 
those  whom  he  then  thought  should  bff  punished  as  traitors  now  stand. 

You  will  remember,  my  friends,  that  he  declared  that  treason  was  a  crime  and 
ought  to  be  punished.  Has  it  been  punished  ?  He  said  that  traitors  should  be 
odious.  He  has  taken  no  step  towards  making  them  odious  to  my  knowledge,  ex¬ 
cept  in  insisting  that  they  shall  have  seats  in  Congress,  and  pardoning  them  for  that 
purpose.  Perhaps,  with  his  opinion  of  Congress,  he  considers  that  odium  enough, 
t  Applause.  ]  But  otherwise,  I  insist  that  he  has  carried  out  none  of  the  pledges  that 
he  made  to  delegations  from  every  State  in  the  Union  a  little  less  than  a  year  ago. 
When  he  does  so,  he  shall  find  no  more  ardent  adherent  than  myself. 

Now,  let  us  stand,  not  for  men,  but  for  principles — for  equality  and  right  and  jus¬ 
tice  ;  stand  by  those  who  fought  our  battles ;  stand  by  those  who  stood  by  us.  But 
why  need  I  say  this  to  the  Legislature  and  State  of  Pennsylvania — to  the  Union 
majority  of  that  Legislature  ? 

I  feel  no  unkindness  toward  any  who  differ  from  me,  but  I  commend  the  Union 
majority  of  that  Legislature  and  the  Union  party  of  the  State  for  standing  by  him 
who  stood  by  you,  for  I  recognize  in  }rour  candidate  for  Governor  one  of  the  best 
soldiers  of  the  war,  and  one  of  the  foremost  and  truest  and  most  valuable  citizens 
of  your  Commonwealth,  of  whom  I  can  say  from  personal  knowledge,  (not  paying 
a  compliment  where  none  is  needed,)  that  no  man  will  find  in  him,  when  elected, 
even  a  shadow  of  turning  from  the  principles  to  which  he  shall  declare  himself 
committed. 

The  issue  between  parties  and  under  the  same  leaders  is  the  same  that  it  was  in 
the  war  ;  the  struggle  is  not  yet  over.  Their  first  appeal  was  made  at  the  ballot- 
box  ;  it  failed  in  I860.  The  next  appeal  was  made  on  the  battle-field  aided  by  the  ^ 
election  of  1864 ;  that  failed  in  1865.  In  1866  and  1868  the  appeal  is  again,  and  for 
the  last  time,  if  we  are  true,  to  be  made  to  the  ballot-box.  Let  true  men  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  then,  as  we  have  in  the  past,  and  once  for  all  and  forever 
shall  the  doctrines  of  secession,  disunion,  injustice,  rebellion  and  treason  be  settled. 
[Great  applause.] 

Mr.  RUDDIMAN  moved  that  the  thanks  of  the  Heuse  be  tendered  to  Major 
General  Butler  for  his  able  and  eloquent  exposition  of  the  principles  of  the  Union 
party. 

On  the  motion  of  Mr.  Ruddiman, 

The  yeas  and  nays  were  required  by  Mr.  BARRINGTON  and  Mr.  DAYIS,  and 
were  as  follows,  viz  : 

Yeas — Messrs.  Adaire,  Adlum,  Allen,  Armstrong,  Baker,  Bemus,  Brown,  Came¬ 
ron  (Susquehanna,)  Danks,  Davis,  DeHaven,  Denues,  Freeborn,  Ghegan,  Glass, 
Grinnell,  Herron,  Hoffman,  Hood,  Humphrey,  Irwin,  Kerns,  Kinney,  Lee,  M’Afee, 
M’Creary,  M’ Elroy,  M’Kee,  M’Kinley,  M’Pherrin,  Mann,  Marks,  Mechling,  Meily, 
Negley,  Osterliout,  Pennypacker,  Pillow,  Quay,  Ross,  Rotlirock,  Ruddiman,  Seiler, 
Shaffer,  Sharpies,  Slienk,  Shirk,  Shuman,  Slack,  Smith,  Stehman,  Sterner,  Stam- 
baugh,  Sturtevant,  Subers,  Thomas,  Tyson,  Waddell,  Wallace,  Watt,  Welsh, 
Whann,  Wingard,  Woodward  and  Kelley,  Speaker — 65. 

Nays — Messrs.  Barr,  Barrington,  Boyle,  Calvin,  Cameron  (York,)  Collins,  Braig, 
Crosland,  Donnelty,  Earley,  Eldred,  Grady,  Harner,  Headman,  Houck,  Jacoby, 
Josephs,  Kline,  Koon,  Kurtz,  Lawrence,  Long,  Markley,  Meyers,  Missimer,  Nel¬ 
son,  Pershing,  Quigley,  Rhoads,  Robinson,  Rose,  Satterthwait,  Seybert,  Tharp  and 
Weiser — 85. 

So  the  question  was  determined  in  the  affirmative. 

The  House  then  adjourned. 


